Fasting Quotations

Here are fifty-two sayings, extracts and quotations on fasting. Facts on fasting are on another page. And to make my stand clear: Skilled fasting may be all right and can also improve health - maybe not overnight, but along the way. There are many sides to it, several issues and many observations to consider too. - Sayings with no named author may be credited T. Kinnes.

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A healthy appetite is of health; a long, hazardous fast may not be so.

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner (Samuel Johnson).

A sick animal retires into a secluded place and fasts until its body is restored to normal. It drinks water and seeks perhaps medicinal herbs instinctively (Cf. Juliette de Baïracli Levy, The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable).

Animals instinctively fast when ill (Elson Haas, MD).

Be on your guard when you begin to mortify your body by abstinence and fasting - lest you imagine yourself to be perfect and a saint (Saint Jerome [340–420 CE, Doctor of the Catholic Church]).

Beware so that crappy fasting doesn't become a sorry punishment.

Clever and sensible fasting may have no direct and immediate appeal, but may take its share in preventing weight gains.

Compulsive fasting looks like a denial of being fully alive. There is much good and delicious food that may sustain us.

Dieting happens to serve many who live on treating and advicing obese people.

Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may diet (Harry Kurnitz).

Fast horribly and you die.

Fasting – is it a song of joy, as some unduly claim?

Fasting can help reverse the aging process . . . if we use it correctly, (James Balch, MD ["Prescription For Natural Healing"]).

Fasting for long may not be a pleasure, but its benefits are said to count.

Fasting appears to help some to moan with pleasure.

Fasting in between four or five daily meals does not count.

Fasting may prevent many things, but only rarely cure serious diseases.

Fun fasting, can it be, or is it a contradiction of terms? Go for a healthy and delicious lifestyle and diet first and foremost, fasting is by nature remedial at best.

Greater than those who speculate in unsound, "smart" diets and weight-loss regimens are those who sincerely want to help a lot and accomplishes it too.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting (Benjamin Franklin).

I once spent some days in a desert with a man who looked like skin and bone. He lived solely on oranges - explaining that he had done bad things in his past and wanted to atone for them.

Ideal fasting may supply the body with an environment that triggers much and needed self-repair (Cf. Joel Fuhrman, MD).

If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do (Hermann Hesse).

If by fasting you could absolve a hundred sins, would you consider it?

If you must fast, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes amd and the reasonable quitting time (Chinese proverb, adapted).

In a fast, the body tears down its defective parts and then builds anew when eating is resumed (Herbert M. Shelton, Fasting for Renewal of Life).

In the Church, feigned and blind love of fasting is hardly a very good part of the monastic experience.

Is there a hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness as the hollow inside of a resonating bongo drum?

It is good to know that sound studies back up fasting as good for something, but not for detoxing.

It is with fasting as with eating in general: There are sensible ways and all the others.

It may be better to have a steady income than to be greatly fasting.

Many clergymen are spokesmen of fasting, because "it is in the bible". And so is belief in a flat world with a four corners and a pillared foundation (2 Samuel 22:16; Psalm 18:15; Revelation 7:1; etc.).

One may come to wonder whether doctors who speak in glowing terms for fasting, do they speak of real or illusory delights of fasting?

Periodic fasting differs from spurious fasting in that it should be reasonable enough to work well.

Sensible fasting does not mean renouncing the joys of eating; only to postpone them for a little while, attempting to gain benefits thus.

Some might think that starving, or involuntary fasting, does not count a lot, even though some end results are slim. In other words, starving and fasting are much related. But if through lack of food one fasts, it may not work out full well.

The clever fasting fellow on a date might as well just rise and go home.

The penitential practices suggested by the Church include fasting (Pope John Paul II).

The philosopher is like a man fasting in the midst of universal intoxication. He perceives illusions of which creatures are willing playthings. He judges more sanely, he sees things as they are. It is in this that his liberty consists - in the ability to see clearly and soberly (Mod Henri Frederic Amiel [1821–1881]).

The practice of fasting tacitly acknowledges the fact that ours is a self-healing organism (Annemarie Colbin).

The wise man knows how to break a fast (George Bernard Shaw, author).

There are many diseases around. Fasting hardly cures all of them. There are many overweight folks around: Fasting helps some of them.

To abstain from particular foods or full-on fasting is part of many traditions and holidays.

To lengthen your life, lessen your meals (Benjamin Franklin).

To the fasting yuppie there may be nothing to feel jubilant over for a long time. So what?

To the hell-bound, the idea of fasting may not creep in at all.

To walk away from a well-laid dinner table in order to do without food or go hungry for three days, how clever does that appear to you? Still, there could be health benefits in store for the smart ones who manage to look above immediate, sensial gratification.

Unwelcome fasting makes some people glum.

What is the benefit of fasting while filling our souls with innumerable evils? asks Basil

When a man first undergoes a thoroughly stupid fast, it could be from noble motives.

When nothing else seems to be effective, comforting companionship might be suitable too. When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting (St. Jerome).

When through with a fast, you may feel great relief of another and more vibrant sort than when you at last stop banging your head against a wall.